


Airportland

by liquidCitrus



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Chicago Firefighters (Blaseball Team), Drabble, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28166490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquidCitrus/pseuds/liquidCitrus
Summary: A tiny little origin story of some Chicago Firefighters player or other (I didn't have a specific one in mind): coming from Portland, Maine, which - as a metaphysical counterbalance for the places in the Blaseballverse that have sunk into the ground - is now several thousand feet in the air.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Airportland

You walk home from the store with two grocery bags more and a couple hundred dollars less than when you started.

The trouble with living in Airportland is that it's ludicrously expensive. People started moving out after the Rise and haven't stopped, so housing isn't an issue anymore - honestly, if you just squat somewhere nobody is going to notice or care. Over the past couple years the city's mounted rainwater collectors and wind turbines, and satellite internet is perfectly serviceable, so all the modern conveniences still work fine. But when every single grocery item has to be airlifted in, when dried beans are ten dollars to the pound and let's not even talk about what fresh produce costs, it becomes awfully tempting to just borrow a commuter ultralight to glide down to the surface, and then never go back up afterwards.

Back up a bit, actually, that's not where the story starts.

Many years ago, Portland, Maine started rising. Something like a couple inches a day. Within the first month, no ladders could reach high enough. After a few months, even gondola lifts and ziplines became impossible to maintain. And then it kept going.

They call it Airportland, now. Maybe it's the exact metaphysical opposite of the many other cities that've been slowly sinking into the ground? There are theories. You don't really care about the theories.

There's a bit of a tourist industry, thrillseekers bungee-jumping off the Cliffs, the local unique delicacy of the Air Jellyfish Chowder, that kind of thing. But mostly the residents are just people who've lived there for their entire life, who aren't about to leave just because of some silly little thing like getting lifted a mile into the air.

Airportland has a fire department. A really well-staffed and well-funded one, actually; Portland burnt down so many times that their city mascot is a phoenix. A couple years ago you signed up, and the department chose you for an apprenticeship in Chicago, and so, of course, you went. The Chicago Firefighters have an intimate knowledge and relationship with the Fire of Chicago; they taught you the ways of the City, of the Call, of how to catnap across a twenty-four-hour shift, maintain the engines, and play blaseball.

(You aren't terribly good at blaseball, but that wasn't what you came here to do, so it's fine.)

You're from Chicago, now, as well as Airportland. You use ordinary cellphones and radios to communicate with Airportland's local dispatch, which works well enough even if you always feel like something is missing. You fly the local fireplanes to emergencies, occasionally retrieve dogs from trees, you know, the usual sort of things most firefighters-with-a-lowercase-F do. It's not the same as Chicago was, but Airportland is where your job is, where you're paid, where your siblings live. You call the Firefighters back in Chicago a couple times a month and talk about how they're doing. You try not to think about what's missing.

The ILB is revived. The Book opens. It turns out that Firefighters are not immune from incineration by rogue umpires.

You still call the old team, and all of you talk about your shared memories and shared fears. You put your head down and work, and try not to think about all your mentors and former co-workers in substantially more mortal danger than they were previously.

One night you dream of the Call, stronger than you've heard it in years. The City needs you. Chicago needs you. Desperately.

You resign from your job in Airportland's fire service, give all your important documents to your sister for safekeeping, and take the next flight out to Chicago.

A Firefighters player is incinerated, that day, and you suddenly understand why the City called you here. You pick up a glove and walk out onto the field.


End file.
